


I was gone, but not my love.

by extemporaneous



Series: Goldfinch Drabble [1]
Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt No Comfort, If their reunion in New York had gone differently, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Well maybe a little bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 17:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20855378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extemporaneous/pseuds/extemporaneous
Summary: This was going to hurt like hell.





	I was gone, but not my love.

**Author's Note:**

> I confess I have only seen the movie once. I 'm reading the book now. So this is based off the movie, and loosely. 
> 
> Here is a playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1QD9cyuWDDYmgcDkhZ5SxI?si=r5Y3J77HSrKdEkndpuaw_w
> 
> The title is from the song Youth by Glass Animals.

To be very honest, Theo wasn’t sure he wanted to see Boris again. He’d left a gaping crevasse, the shape of childhood love-sickness in Theo’s life. One that he was still trying to fill with anything and everything. Those nights by the poolside. The concrete hole an empty cave, that ate the dry wind sweeping in from the west like it ate their confessions, there in the dark and the abandoned. There was always before Boris, and after, and that was just the way life was going to be. Theo had come to terms with that much a long time ago, but now there he was, sitting across the bar. And he’d fucked everything to hell. 

Theo wanted to get up and leave, to pretend that he hadn’t seen him, lounging in the booth, dressed like Theo had always imagined he would when they were grown up: dark clothes, shirt left unbuttoned, like he had money and no true idea what to do with it. The same curls tossed across his face in a mess, like everything hadn’t fallen apart. Like Theo hadn’t left him behind, like maybe Boris had followed him to New York. He was his third lesson in abandonment (but he wasn’t sure which of them had really abandoned the other) and he knew he’d learn the lesson again. Boris looked like he hadn’t changed, not really, and Theo knew that it might be a lesson learned sooner, rather than later. Just beyond the horizon of a hello. Boris’ eyes brightened as they fell on Theo, shimmering in the light of the sullen bar. Theo blinked a pinprick of tears from his own eyes.

This was going to hurt like hell. Within a drink, Theo had slipped so effortlessly back into their banter, and Boris’ smile had become so pretty. He had a wicked edge now, one that you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of. Theo wondered if his father had given him it. The thought sling-shot him back in time, to the night in front of the window, his heart thumping in his mouth as he watched the boy he adored have the light beaten out of him. If he had been older, stronger, Theo would have ran back into that lonely house. Done something then and there. But he was just a boy then, and the world had already taught him it would not be reckoned with. He was so scared his breath held steadfast in his chest. 

Now he was in a bed, not his own, not Boris’. One meant for moments like this. He was in a bed with the boy he loved and where their skin touched everything made the universe set right everything that was wrong. In the morning, it wouldn’t be, but tomorrow was far away and Boris’ fingertips were electrical, charged like a superstorm that had been building for eons. 

In the morning the light peeked through the blinds, casting stark golden lines across his lithe back. He still murmured in his sleep, like he would never run out of things to say. His eyes flitted back and forth under his lids, which were so dark from restless nights he almost looked like he painted the bruises of exhaustion on every morning. Theo leaned forward and kissed each of them softly, so Boris wouldn’t wake and end the dream. His arm was tossed over Theo’s hip, limp. He felt like a bird, so slight in his arms. Boris would wake, and sooner or later he would fly away. Maybe in some ways Boris had broken free from his chains, but Theo was still the Goldfinch, chained down by the gravity of life. 

Boris had changed, and he had not. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm sad or whatever.


End file.
